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You had the last print interview with Jerry Falwell just before he passed away in May 2007. If you could interview him again, what would you say?

I've puzzled over that a lot. I think I would thank him first of all, because indirectly he was responsible for the semester I had. And I would tell him some of my qualms about the way he preached and the way he led the school, but I don't think I'd spend too much time on that. I'd probably be asking him more questions.

You largely blame "paranoia and lack of exposure" for the culture war between evangelicals and non-evangelicals. Do you think it's possible to bridge the gap between the two sides?

A lot of my friends at Brown, I love them to death, but a lot of them are paranoid of evangelical culture. A lot of them would send me e-mails during my semester saying, 'Are you getting tortured down there? Are they burning you at the stake?,' and then the same thing on the other side. My Liberty friends would talk about secular culture as one big orgy, and it's not. My fantasy is to have other people do versions of what I did. How cool would it be to have an exchange program between secular colleges and evangelical colleges and have [students] switch places for a semester? I think we could do a lot to break down that wall.

You mention the possibility of conversion several times. So why didn't you?

I didn't end up converting to evangelicalism because I felt it would be dishonest of me. I wasn't convinced that the Bible is inerrant and that Jesus is the only way to heaven. But I did find myself really pulled to evangelicals' faith, and I did start reading the Bible on my own without it being mandatory for a class. I still read the Bible and I still pray. I go to church once in a while—it's not a regular part of my life, but when I do it, I really enjoy myself. So I'm not scared of faith in the way I used to be; it doesn't bother me. And I'm still, to some extent, trying to piece together my own worldview.

Looking back, are you glad you spent the semester at Liberty? How did it change you?

Absolutely, I would do it again in a second. I'm so glad I went. I think there's real value in opening up these lines of communication, and now I have this integrated world where I have a social life at Brown and I'm still in contact with my friends at Liberty. I think I'm the only person on Facebook who has friends at both Brown and Liberty. I feel very fortunate to have been able to go to this school and have these people take me into their lives.

Copyright © 2009 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

The Unlikely Disciple  is available at ChristianBook.com and other book retailers. Excerpts are available at The Daily Beast, Salon.com, and Roose's website.

The Lynchburg News & Advance  has an interview. Mental Floss has some excerpty-type lists by Roose based on his book. He has a summary of sorts in the Brown University alumni magazine.

Karen Swallow Prior reviewed The Unlikely Disciple for Books & Culture, Christianity Today's sister publication.

See our similar interview with A. J. Jacobs (author of The Year of Living Biblically), and our reviews of Benyamin Cohen's My Jesus Year and Mark Pinsky's A Jew Among the Evangelicals. Roose, by the way, was Jacob's "slave" (unpaid intern) in The Year of Living Biblically.

See also our full coverage area for Jerry Falwell and our past coverage of Liberty University.

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March (Web-only) 2009, Vol. 53